To remap the colours to whatever suits our needs - using a color ramp rather than just presets. Reason: Dynamic ocean meshes could emit particles with color inheritance.Could we also have an outWeightPP? Ocean peaks could emit fluid spray.

There is no simple solution to this.I had to code pretty fat chunk of code full with exceptions for the smartConnect.You will need a mixture of C++ API calls mixed with bunch of exceptions and assumptions if you want to reliably recognize all attributes, their flavors and types.

Nope, there is no easy mel command to find out.There are different ways to create attributes that result in different object types being created.So you have to find out the attribute object type first and then find the attribute data type from there.In your case - as far as i remember that is a typed attribute with data type being kDoubleArray.But i can use the same attribute object with data type kIntArray.Also i can create an attribute object of generic type (MFnGenericAttribute) and make it accept data of type kDoubleArray.At the end of the day both attributes will accept double arrays, but the attributes themselves will be of different type.Also, generic attributes can support multiple data types. If you look at the attributeTransfer node you will notice that the inGeometry attribute can handle meshes, particles, curves, surfaces, etc. Until you connect something to it the data type is undefined. This further complicates things.Then we have compounds that can contain multiple different types of attributes too = even more messy.I can keep going ... :)

mmm, that does sound complex. The reason I ask is based on how should we effectively troubleshoot networks when they arent working for us. Often if I cant get something to work I sometimes need to know the actual output or input data type of an attribute. At the end of the day there are only 3-4 main types to worry about I guess but having quick access to this information can be important.

What comes to mind is Houdinis middle mouse clicking a node and getting its information popup really handy, the same would be awesome for Maya or even to go as far as clicking an output and getting its data type or something.

Alternatively another option would be to middle mouse click a SOuP node and get the help documentation to pop open in browser with the input/output data type info available.Just something to speed up the troubleshooting process for users.

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